Tuesday, 31st March 2015

Daily nuggets of inspiration from the good folk at Elmwood.

This newly released camera seems to defy the laws of physics. You can stick it on the ceiling. To gritty brick walls. Or sweaty club walls, for that matter. Podo’s little gizmo stays put and beams your image back to your smartphone. So you can compose the shot without all the wobbling of a selfie stick. (Snappy spot, thanks Julie.)

Your pic then pops up in the app on your screen, thanks to the power of Bluetooth, and you’re ready to upload it to the social media sharing site of your choice. The wireless, hands-free fun you could capture with its video and timelapse settings would is enough to send Newton’s head spinning.

Sofas kill. As every new mother is told. But, babies rolling down the cracks aside, there are some serious concerns about how much time we all spend on our tushes.

To get our moneymakers moving, Vittel have launched a campaign to motivate our inner sofa sloths. Their Couch Converter service will furnish you with a pair of personalised running shoes inspired by your lounger. Simply send in your sofa’s photo and a snippet of its fabric, and a team of shoe designers will get to work to create a custom pair of kicks for the (soon-to-be) reformed couch potato in you. Three-piece sweet.

Fancy a biscuit with your coffee? Well it’s right there, in your hand. Yep, the cup is the biscuit. To mark the introduction of Seattle’s Best Coffee in its restaurants, KFC is serving up the brew in edible coffee cups. (Tasty Matt)

The ‘Scoff-ee Cup’ is made from biscuit, wrapped in sugar paper and lined with a thick layer of white chocolate. Filled with hot coffee the chocolate lining slowly melts, the biscuit softens and the whole arrangement turns into a wonderfully sweet, sticky snack.

The bruised face of a woman is a pretty startling representation of domestic violence. But the new outdoor campaign for Women’s Aid developed by WCRS is more than just a shock tactic. The billboard incorporates facial recognition technology that registers when people are looking at the image. This in turn triggers a series of messages along the bottom of the ad urging passers-by not to turn a blind eye. As more people take notice, the bruises on the woman’s face start to fade.

It’s the first time this technology, which allows an immediate change in the display triggered by the attention of the viewer, has been used. And it supports a powerful message – only by recognizing and acting on the issue of domestic violence can we hope to make the bruises go away.

When your whiskey starts sending you messages, you might think it’s time to ease off on the hard stuff. But it’s OK. You’re not caught up in a 21st Century re-make of The Lost Weekend. Global drinks manufacturer Diageo is prototyping a new kind of label for Johnnie Walker Blue Label – one that allows it to communicate directly with consumers.

The so-called smart bottle features an NFC-embedded label that’s capable of sending branded messages to your mobile. Not only that, it knows if the bottle’s been opened. We reckon there’s a valuable surveillance opportunity here – could the bottle also let you know when your teenage kids are raiding the drinks cabinet?